Sweet Water (28 page)

Carmine, drunk on sweet milk and bread, splays in my lap, his dark head in the crook of my arm. I wrap the scratchy blanket around us. In the rhythmic clacking of the train and the stirring, peopled silence of the car, I feel cocooned. Carmine smells as lovely as a custard, the solid weight of him so comforting it makes me teary. His spongy skin, pliable limbs, dark fringed lashes—even his sighs make me think (how could they not?) of Maisie. The idea of her dying alone in the hospital, suffering painful burns, is too much to bear. Why am I alive, and she dead?

In our tenement there were families who spilled in and out of each other’s apartments, sharing child care and stews. The men worked together in grocery stores and blacksmith shops. The women ran cottage industries, making lace and darning socks. When I passed by their apartments and saw them sitting together in a circle, hunched over their work, speaking a language I didn’t understand, I felt a sharp pang.

My parents left Ireland in hopes of a brighter future, all of us believing we were on our way to a land of plenty. As it happened, they failed in this new land, failed in just about every way possible. It may have been that they were weak people, ill suited for the rigors of emigration, its humiliations and compromises, its competing demands of self-discipline and adventurousness. But I wonder how things might have been different if my father was part of a family business that gave him structure and a steady paycheck instead of working in a bar, the worst place for a man like him—or if my mother had been surrounded by women, sisters and nieces, perhaps, who could have provided relief from destitution and loneliness, a refuge from strangers.

In Kinvara, poor as we were, and unstable, we at least had family nearby, people who knew us. We shared traditions and a way of looking at the world. We didn’t know until we left how much we took those things for granted.

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• Liiterary Guild Alternate Selection
  

• Barnes and Noble Discover Award nominee
  

• Named one of the most promising new novelists of 1993 by
  Library Journal
  

      
“Sweet Water
is one of those books that is a discovery.”

—Knoxville News Sentinel

      “A poised first novel of a young woman’s self-discovery through her searching exploration of family history—history that is both damaging and redeeming.”

—Maureen Howard

      “Kline reveals the overlapping stories of Cassie and her grandmother Clyde with grace and intuition, articulating an entire spectrum of passions from lust, jealousy and hate to love and forgiveness.”

—Booklist

      “A powerful, enthralling novel that packs a wallop to the last page…. Kline combines the elements of a thriller with a probing look at family relationships. Near the novel’s end a dramatic confrontation between Cassie and her grandmother tautly combines rage, disbelief, revelation, and, ultimately, love in a few heart-rending pages.”

—Chattanooga Times

      “A compelling psychological study of bitterness, guilt and fear.”

—Atlanta Journal-Constitution

      “Characters well worth knowing, as is the tale….
Sweet Water
reveals the desperate measures that the human heart is capable of… and the redemptive power of memory and forgiveness.”

—New York Daily News

      “Kline blends satisfying storytelling with psychological chills…. This book is filled with secrets—as well as love, hate, revenge, and guilt. Highly recommended.”

—Library Journal

      “Exceptionally fine … a gripping story, a mesmerizing plot and pages filled with memorable characters…. It is a difficult balancing act, and the author pulls it off with the grace of an Olympic gymnast…. Kline is adept at getting the reader to suspend disbelief, get on Cassie and Clyde’s emotional roller coaster, and be glad for the ride.”

—Yale Alumni Magazine

      
“Sweet Water
has the energy and power that spring from the deepest narrative source, the family.”

—Kelly Cherry

      “Enjoyable and impressive…. The North/South influences, the contrasts and conflicts, come through strongly … imaginatively and effectively presents opposing backgrounds, values and points of view.”

—Nashville Tennessean

      “An impressive first novel.”

—Orlando Sentinel

      “A powerful and at times passionate accounting of a family’s secret history. With an imaginative, innovative structure, with fine, clear writing, with a deep sense of place, and with strongly developed characters well worth knowing, Christina Baker Kline has given us a memorable and suspenseful story.”

—George Garrett

      “What makes Christina Baker Kline’s solid first novel,
Sweet Water,
go is Cassie’s persistent uncovering of family secrets…. Kline’s use of Cassie and Clyde as alternating narrators gives the story added dimension…. Our seeing events from different perspectives underscores what both women come to realize, as they get past stereotypes about each other: that ‘truth can be as brittle, as deceptive as colored glass.’… Filled with literary promise.”

—Newsday/Boston Globe

      “A happy surprise…. The writing is quick, sure and competent, the work of an artist well in command of her craft.
Sweet Water
is expertly told, its narrative fast-paced and well-plotted. Kline nimbly manages a cast of many characters, each voice separate and distinct … and the end of the book leaves us wishing for more…. A great read. Don’t miss it.”

—Bangor Daily News

      “It’s rare for a first novel to be so unbelievably compelling, but when I picked up Christina Baker Kline’s
Sweet Water,
I couldn’t put it down. And the strange thing is that everyone I loaned the book to had the same reaction.”

—Ellen Silva, WAMU Radio, Washington, D.C.

The past is never dead. It’s
not even past.

—W
ILLIAM
F
AULKNER

But in order to make you understand,
to give you my life, I must tell you a story—
and there are so many, and so many.

—V
IRGINIA
W
OOLF
,
T
HE
W
AVES

A hardcover edition of this book was published in 1993 by HarperCollins Publishers.

SWEET WATER
. Copyright © 1993 by Christina Baker Kline.

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EPub Edition © OCTOBER 2010 ISBN: 9780062020765

Version 02282014

FIRST HARPERPERENNIAL EDITION PUBLISHED
1994.

ISBN 0-06-099513-0 (pbk.)

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